Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee Olympian and South African track hero who shot his model girlfriend in his home in February 2013, was given five years in prison by a judge who deemed the sentence a show of mercy as much as it was a penalty.Pistorius shot Reeva Steenkamp through a locked bathroom door, claiming he thought an intruder had broken in. He was found guilty of culpable homicide after a lengthy, emotional trial. Judge Thokozile Masipa cited the “gross negligence” the erstwhile “Blade Runner” showed when he shot Steenkamp multiple times.Pistorius didn’t show emotion as his sentence was read, which was unlike his constant outbursts of tears during the trial. His prison term begins immediately, and he was led down a flight of stairs and toward holding cells before leaving the South African courthouse in an armored vehicle.Pistorius could be released after 10 months in jail to serve the remainder under house arrest, according to legal experts.Masipa said of her sentence: “I am of the view that a noncustodial sentence would send a wrong message to the community. On the other hand, a long sentence would not be appropriate, either, as it would lack the element of mercy.”Masipa last month convicted Pistorius of culpable homicide but acquitted him of murder after he testified he mistook Steenkamp for a nighttime intruder. She asked Pistorius to stand as she delivered the sentence Tuesday, and he faced her with his hands clasped in front of him. Pistorius was then led away by police, stopping briefly to grip the hands of his uncle and other family members as he headed to prison.Steenkamp’s parents were also in court to hear the sentence, and Steenkamp’s mother, June, said justice had been done. A close friend of Steenkamp, Gina Myers, said, “I really don’t think any of us will heal anytime soon. … There will always be questions.”Prosecutors said they are considering whether to appeal the sentence, where Pistorius, 27, could serve less than a year in jail for killing his 29-year-old girlfriend.Nathi Mncube, the prosecution spokesman, said his office was disappointed in the culpable homicide conviction and had not yet decided whether to appeal the sentence.“We have not made up our minds whether we’re going to appeal it or not,” he said. He added that there was an “appetite” to appeal but that prosecutors would review their options.“We are satisfied with the fact that he will be serving some time in prison,” Mncube said.Masipa had a wide range of options available to her because South Africa does not have a minimum sentence for culpable homicide, which is comparable to manslaughter. Pistorius faced up to 15 years in jail but could also have received a completely suspended sentence or house arrest.read more

Paul Richan0.022 7/18/2017J.D. Martinez11.2Sergio Alcantara0.022 Maybe the Tigers held out for too long before hitting the reset button, trying to extend their window beyond the point of reason. But once it began, this was a conventional rebuild — Detroit flipped their desirable veterans for prospects like teams are supposed to do. Early on, though, the prospects haven’t provided much in return. Of the 17 prospects acquired, only four have made the majors so far, and only one — third baseman Isaac Paredes (acquired from the Cubs) — ranks among the team’s top five prospects according to Baseball America. Most of the prospects are still young, so there’s plenty of time for them to add value in Detroit uniforms. For now, those young Tigers have a lot of ground to make up for the team to break even on its fire-sale deals.Perhaps relatedly, going into the 2019 season, Baseball America ranked the Tigers’ farm system as the 14th-best in baseball. On the one hand, that’s the highest organizational ranking Detroit has had since 2007 and a major improvement after the team ranked among the bottom six nine times between 2008 and 2017. (Blowing up a minor-league system to keep the big-league team competitive is a Dombrowski specialty.) But it’s also behind schedule for the type of total teardowns the Tigers are trying to emulate, such as those executed by the Astros and Chicago Cubs earlier this decade. By the same stage in their respective rebuilds — judging by when each team dipped below 70 wins for the first time in its ramp-up towards contention — the Astros had MLB’s ninth-best system and the Cubs ranked fourth:Detroit’s current farm system ranking improved to 13th after its midseason deals this year, and that’s roughly where the Tigers were (12th) back in 2003. The core of that young group — led by Curtis Granderson — played a big role in leading Detroit to a surprise World Series appearance within three years of its 119-loss catastrophe. That model might be a good one for the Tigers to follow when they are finally ready to compete again. But it’s also worth wondering whether bottoming out has the same competitive advantage now that so many other teams are also doing it. When the Tigers lost 119 games, by contrast, that was 20 more than any other team in baseball. The ‘03 Tigers didn’t mean to build one of the worst teams ever, but the 2019 version can’t make that case as convincingly — and neither can the Orioles or Marlins. Nor can this year’s team claim anywhere near as bad luck as in 2003.As it stands now, the Tigers are currently in the driver’s seat when it comes to the race for next year’s No. 1 draft pick. Though they’ve built one of the worst teams of all time, it will all be worth it if they can use the picks and prospects to get back to the World Series quickly, just like the Cubs and Astros — or even an earlier version of the Tigers — did not so long ago. But if not, are all the losses be worth it? Because no one fan base should be forced to watch multiple 110-loss seasons in the span of 16 years without some World Series swag to show for it.Check out our latest MLB predictions. Justin Wilson1.2Jeimer Candelario3.125 8/6/2018Mike Fiers3.3Nolan Blackwood0.024 Jake Rogers-0.124 7/31/2017Alex Avila2.1Isaac Paredes0.020 The 2003 Detroit Tigers were a shining beacon of bad baseball. This was true both as a team — they lost 119 games, the second-most of any MLB team since 19011Only the comically bad 1962 New York Mets, a 120-loss expansion team, lost more. — and also at the individual level. Hapless starter Mike Maroth, for instance, became the only pitcher to lose 20 times in a season since 1980 (and perhaps the last ever to earn that not-so-proud distinction).And yet, this year’s Tigers might be every bit as awful.The FiveThirtyEight projection model thinks the 2019 Tigers will fall a bit short of the 2003 version’s loss total, predicting 111 defeats for Detroit by season’s end. But in terms of other measures, such as our Elo ratings, these Tigers are astonishingly close to their abysmal predecessors. Through 125 games, the Tigers have an Elo of 1398, which not only means Detroit has wrested the crown of “Worst Team in Baseball” away from the Baltimore Orioles — a title that once seemed impossible for the O’s to lose — but it also makes these Tigers just the 14th team ever to have an Elo under 1400 at this stage of a season. Their Elo is currently within striking distance of the 2003 team, which had a 1387 rating at this point in the schedule, and the current Tigers were slightly ahead of their ancestors in the race to baseball’s bottom as recently as eight games ago:(All of this is true even after Detroit pulled off a shocking win over the Houston Astros Wednesday night, in one of the biggest upsets of the 21st century.)It’s never good to be compared with that infamous 2003 squad — even if the current edition of the Tigers was intentionally built to “compete” with the Orioles and Miami Marlins for the No. 1 pick in next year’s draft. After years of enjoying superstar performances from Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera and Max Scherzer, Motor City fans were hoping they’d never again return to the days of Maroth, Bobby Higginson and Ramón Santiago. But history is repeating itself with the likes of Jordan Zimmermann, JaCoby Jones and Jeimer Candelario this year.For their part, the 2003 Tigers were the culmination of a long, steady decline following the breakup of the mega-talented core that won the 1984 World Series (and posted at least 84 wins eight times between 1983 and 1993). After the 1993 Tigers went 85-77, the team wouldn’t go .500 again for another 13 years. An initial rebuild following the 1994 strike yielded 109 losses in 1996 — impressively bad, if mere child’s play compared with some Tiger seasons to come — and the payoff was a team that topped out at just 79 wins in both 1997 and 2000.Then came one of the sharpest downturns in baseball history. Slugger Juan González — for whom the Tigers had traded a number of their best prospects just a year before — left the Tigers via free agency, the team was fleeced in a handful of trades, the farm system yielded little of note, and the rest of the players Detroit staked its future on (Higginson, Dean Palmer, Damion Easley, etc.) all stopped being productive. Over the four-season period from 2000 to 2003, Detroit’s record got progressively worse each year, by an average of 12 wins per season. By 2003, the Tigers were spending a combined $37 million (or 54 percent of the MLB median team payroll that season — the equivalent of $69 million today) on eight players2Higginson, Palmer, Steve Sparks, Matt Anderson, Craig Paquette, Danny Patterson, Shane Halter and Eric Munson. who together generated 0.18 Wins Above Replacement.3Using our JEFFBAGWELL version that merges the WAR found at Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs into a single metric. It was a masterclass in how to turn an average team into a 43-win one practically overnight.The Tigers won five of their last six games to avoid tying the 1962 Mets’ record for futility. But they also needed bad luck to win so little in the first place. No MLB team truly contains 43-win talent — we think? — and the Tigers undershot the record we’d expect from their run differential by five wins in 2003, with another six-win deficit coming from the team’s run differential falling short of its underlying metrics. Add in even more bad luck from players unexpectedly producing career-low numbers,4In a 2014 update of sabermetrician Phil Birnbaum’s classic study of lucky and unlucky teams, I found that the 2003 Tigers had been the 31st-most unlucky team since 1901 in terms of its players all slipping in performance at once. and the 2003 Tigers were probably a team with 55-to-65 win talent and some of the worst luck in baseball history. Manager Alan Trammell, a Tigers legend as a player, deserved better than to manage such a notoriously cursed season of Detroit baseball.A few teams have come close to matching the ‘03 Tigers ineptitude in the years that followed. The very next season, the Arizona Diamondbacks lost 111 games, just three years removed from winning the World Series. The 2013 Astros (111 losses) and 2018 Orioles (115) also made valiant runs at the Mets’ record this decade. In fact, the recent prevalence of tanking teams has created more historically awful teams than ever before: This season alone, our model thinks four teams — the Marlins, Royals, Orioles and Tigers — will each lose more than 100 games.Detroit’s current path to horrendousness was similar — if slightly more straightforward — than the one the team followed 16 years ago. These Tigers were also coming off a period of sustained success, with MLB’s fourth-best record from 2009 through 2014 and three consecutive League Championship Series appearances in 2011, 2012 and 2013 (including an AL pennant in 2012). But by the end of that stretch, Detroit found itself with an old, expensive roster and a bunch of money committed to veteran stars like Cabrera and Verlander. (Though not Scherzer, oddly enough. Then-general manager Dave Dombrowski let Scherzer walk to the Washington Nationals after the 2014 season; all Scherzer has done since then is lead all MLB pitchers in WAR.)After a downturn to start the 2015 season, in which they would finish finish 74-87, Dombrowski unloaded recently-acquired stars David Price and Yoenis Cespedes at the trade deadline and then was eventually relieved of GM duties himself. The Tigers regrouped for one last bid with an aging core in 2016. It worked, to the extent Detroit had a winning record (86-75) again. But the team missed the playoffs by three games despite once again having one of the highest payrolls in baseball. And when the wheels fell off for good in the summer of 2017, the fire sale was on; midseason deals sent away Verlander, J.D. Martinez, Justin Upton, Alex Avila, Justin Wilson and pretty much anybody else who wasn’t nailed down. 7/31/2019Nick Castellanos1.2Alex Lange0.023 The Tigers’ fire sale hasn’t paid dividends … yetAge and wins above replacement (WAR) for notable Detroit Tigers prospects acquired since the 2017 season, plus WAR for veterans traded by Detroit DateVeterans TradedWAR SinceProspects AcquiredWAR SinceAge WAR numbers through Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2019.Sources: FanGraphs, Baseball-Reference.com Dawel Lugo-0.824 7/31/2018Leonys Martín-0.3Willi Castro0.022 Franklin Pérez0.021 Travis Demeritte0.124 8/31/2017Justin Upton3.9Grayson Long0.025 Elvin Rodriguez0.021 8/31/2017Justin Verlander12.8Daz Cameron0.022 Logan Shore0.024 Jose King0.020 7/31/2019Shane Greene-0.1Joey Wentz0.021read more

Doug Williams198227409Rival league Chase Daniel30199.6 Ed Hargett197124199Benched Colin Kaepernick201629202? Many of the absences were injury-related (remember Trent Green?), some QBs simply lost their starting roles and stayed on the bench, and others were lured away to join rival leagues.Kaepernick, though, isn’t injured, has not yet secured even a spot on the bench, and an excursion into a rival league is a far steeper fall off for a player today than it was in the past.Kaepernick can fit into different offensesThat doesn’t mean Kaepernick’s case is open and shut, though. There are other factors that may be at play, such as his reported desire to compete for a starting job (and earn a low-starter to high-backup salary). That would encourage him to wait and see what happens with Romo and the ripple effects that Romo’s move could have on the rest of the league.But there is also a belief that the delay in finding Kaepernick a team is because of his particular skillset: that any team that signs him would have to run an offense built for a quarterback who isn’t a pocket passer. But Kaepernick’s reputation for being a bad QB in the pocket is somewhat overblown. There are in-depth film reviews for Kaepernick that show his ability to make reads and handle pressure, such as Doug Farrar’s at Bleacher Report. The stats confirm as much.Last season, Kaepernick completed 61 percent of his passes from the pocket, for 14 touchdowns and two interceptions, according to data from ESPN’s Stats & Information Group. Elite quarterbacks tend to complete something in the mid-to-high 60s, so it’s not like Kaepernick is being shunned despite being elite. The league median completion percentage since 2010 is 63 percent. Still, considering that San Francisco receivers dropped 6.3 percent of all targets thrown their way in 2016 — the highest rate in the league — Kaepernick’s accuracy is likely a bit better than the percentages show.3Many of the drops were short-to-intermediate routes, so Kaepernick wasn’t losing massive chunks of potential yardage to drops the way, say, Cam Newton was. But for offenses that struggle to gain big chunks of yardage, drops on short passes have a compounding effect.It was Kaepernick’s out-of-pocket stats that weighed down his numbers: He completed just 49 percent of his passes from outside the pocket in 2016, with a raw QBR (total QBR before adjusting for strength of opponent) of just 16.5 on those plays. So it’s probably a good thing that the share of Kaepernick’s plays that came outside the pocket were at a career-low last season, dropping from a high of 23 percent of his plays in 2012 to 17 percent in 2016. That 17 percent is still fairly high relative to the league (the median since 2010 is 11 percent), but his game is trending toward staying in the pocket.Despite Kaepernick’s flaws, QBs at his level are still worth something in the NFL, in part because its quarterback marketplace is driven by scarcity. The Denver Broncos were prepared to give up a fourth-round pick for Kaepernick last year because there aren’t that many people in the world who can do what Kaepernick can do, even if what Kaepernick does is far from perfect.For instance, Kaepernick’s raw QBR for in-pocket plays has not been very good the past few seasons. Among 232 qualified passer-seasons since 2010, Kaepernick’s 2016 ranks 208th. But then look at Sam Bradford, whose 2015 season ranks four spots ahead of Kaepernick, at 204th. When Minnesota starter Teddy Bridgewater went down just before the 2016 season, the Vikings traded a 2017 first-round pick and a 2018 fourth-rounder for Bradford’s services as an emergency starter. Kaepernick is only a year older than Bradford was last season, but his value has dipped from a fourth-round pick in Denver to seemingly nothing at all.It is impossible to prove the precise mix of factors that have gone into Kaepernick’s free agency to this point. The market remains paralyzed by Romo, and teams are run by fallible owners and executives who may simply disagree on Kaepernick’s football value. But given what we know about how the quarterback market has worked historically, and about Kaepernick’s value as a player, the commentariat is right to be suspicious. If Kaepernick begins the season without a team, history says it’s unlikely to be for football reasons. We aren’t there yet, but every day further into free agency makes that scenario harder to ignore. Shaun Hill373863.6 Steve Walsh199428220Benched Colin Kaepernick2945455.2 T.J. Rubley199325225Benched PLAYERYEARAGEYARDS ABOVE REPLACEMENTREASON FOR ABSENCE Ed Rubbert198723361Unsigned Robert Griffin III2721145.0 Charlie Whitehurst353037.9 In other words, Kaepernick’s absence from the NFL may be a quirk of circumstance in a league where there are only so many landing spots during the offseason. You don’t hear talk radio obsessing over where Blaine Gabbert will end up, for example.Our free-agency data set has a blind spot, though — it only shows QBs who were ultimately signed. Another way to try to evaluate why Kaepernick hasn’t been is to spin a hypothetical: Imagine Kaepernick doesn’t throw a single pass next season — is he like other QBs who fall off the map?Not really. Since 1966, only one under-30 quarterback has had as good a year as Kaepernick’s 20161According to yards above replacement, which takes into account passing and rushing value over a backup-level QB. yet gone unsigned the next year.2Congrats to Ed Rubbert, who went unsigned in 1988 after playing as a scab during an NFL player’s strike for Washington the previous year. Other young quarterbacks who follow relatively good seasons with no passes the next tend to be out of the game for different reasons: Matt McGloin271714.5 Quarterbacks who remain unsigned as of March 29, 2017 SEASON BEFORE ABSENCE David Fales2671.8 Neil Lomax198829829Injury Bobby Hebert198929444Holdout Why Kaepernick-caliber QBs missed a season Ryan Fitzpatrick3448145.4 Greg Cook196923614Injury PREVIOUS SEASON Last season, Kaepernick posted a QBR of 55.2 — which is not great (he ranked 23rd out of 30 qualified passers) but also not terrible. (The NFL-wide average QBR was 61.3.) You can see on the chart that Lee’s theory is credible: It’s hard to find a recent free-agent QB who played at Kaepernick’s level and lasted so long on the market the next offseason. Matt Leinart (2012) and Kyle Orton (2014) signed nearly 50 days into their free agency, but neither had played much the year before. Michael Vick wasn’t signed for 169 days in 2015, but he was also older and coming off a season (39.4 QBR) far worse than Kaepernick’s 2016.There are an unusual number of unsigned QBs at this stage of the offseason, though, and some with comparable résumés to Kaepernick’s. That’s in part because Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo may move teams this offseason and begin a QB carousel in the league. Charlie Batch200127197Benched Three weeks into the NFL’s free-agency period, Colin Kaepernick still doesn’t have a job. Ordinarily, an NFL veteran who is having difficulty finding a team isn’t exactly newsworthy. But NFL talent is scarce at quarterback, and Kaepernick’s situation is far from ordinary.After Kaepernick’s protest of the national anthem last season as quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, the question has become whether it’s the reason that teams are avoiding him. Some arguments regarding Kaepernick’s worth to a team are easily put aside (the obsession over “distractions” in sports is always tired but loses all meaning when we have proof that the supposed distraction had the opposite effect), though that wouldn’t necessarily stop a team from considering them. But others are more credible, or at least invite more investigation. Could it be that Kaepernick just isn’t good enough, or that he plays a style that makes him difficult to accommodate?The evidence suggests that those factors alone don’t explain Kaepernick’s unemployment. Kaepernick’s current employment status looks less like a natural result of the supposed NFL meritocracy and more like something unusual is going on (even by the standards of an unusually complex situation). His play is good enough to have attracted interest from teams by now. That it hasn’t suggests that he’s being punished on at least some level for his political outspokenness.Other QBs as good as Kaepernick usually get signedThere are a couple of ways we can judge whether it’s unusual that Kaepernick is still waiting for NFL teams to call. One is to see how long into free agency it usually takes for a quarterback of Kaepernick’s quality to find a new team. Director Spike Lee implied in an Instagram post a week ago that similar QBs are usually signed by now. He’s right.To investigate Lee’s claim, we started with a list of all free-agent QBs who changed teams since 2012 (the first free-agency period under the NFL’s current collective bargaining agreement), courtesy of our friends at ESPN’s Stats & Information Group. Then for each quarterback, we plotted his Total Quarterback Rating (QBR) from the season before his free agency — to get a sense of how well he played — against the number of days that elapsed between the start of his free agency and his signing: Gary Danielson197827341Injury Trent Green199828458Injury Steve Beuerlein198924226Benched Jay Cutler3417033.2 Craig Nall200425224Benched Vince Ferragamo198026987Rival league Steve Walsh199125436Benched Sam Bradford201326254Injury Blaine Gabbert2721860.3 Randy Johnson197329345Rival league Minimum one action play in the previous season. Ages are as of Dec. 31, 2016.Source: ESPN Stats & Information Group Ed Luther198427396Rival league Timm Rosenbach199024197Injury Case Keenum2938843.4 Top 20 seasons, by yards above replacement, among quarterbacks younger than 30 who threw zero passes the following season, 1966 to 2016. Ages are as of Dec. 31 of the listed year.Sources: Pro-Football-Reference.com, media reports PLAYERAGEPLAYSQBRread more

A couple of weeks ago, it was anybody’s guess as to which version of the New York Mets would show up for the 2018 season. Would it be something like the 2016 edition, a solid ballclub that reached the NL wild-card game on dominant pitching and a streaky offense? Or the 2017 squad, an injury-riddled catastrophe from almost start to finish? Or maybe some third kind of team: one possibly able to coalesce into a legitimate contender with better health and a new manager?A great (and also frustrating) thing about baseball is that, 14 games into the schedule, we still don’t really know the answer. But what few clues the 2018 Mets have provided are mostly encouraging. At 12-2, including Sunday’s walk-off victory over the Milwaukee Brewers, New York is baseball’s second-best team record-wise, trailing only the Boston Red Sox. Ability-wise? Maybe not quite so much. But the team has at least shown that, when it’s healthy — a caveat that perpetually hangs over the franchise — it has the potential to break into MLB’s upper echelon.When the current-era Mets were at their best in the 2015 and 2016 campaigns, their success largely depended on having an elite pitching staff, one that finished a close second behind the Washington Nationals in pitching wins above replacement (WAR)1Averaging together the versions of WAR found at Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs. over those seasons. The key was a core of flame-throwing pitchers the likes of which had seldom been seen before: a rotation with Noah Syndergaard, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz,2Matz was called up for good late in the 2015 regular season and was in the Mets’ rotation for that postseason. each of whom ranked among the 35 hardest-throwing starters in MLB, plus a bullpen backstopped by fireballing closer Jeurys Familia. According to WAR, Mets pitchers’ production represented more than half of the team’s value (52 percent) in 2015 and 2016, compared with the league average of only 42 percent of WAR coming from pitchers.By comparison, the rest of the team was pretty unremarkable in the span, ranking 16th in total WAR from position players. While the lineup had its moments — Yoenis Cespedes’s ridiculous late-season tear in 2015 comes to mind — it was mostly inconsistent, too reliant on the home run and lacking in high-impact talent (especially when Cespedes was injured). And the defense was nothing special, either. So it was no surprise that when the Mets’ pitching collapsed entirely in 2017, dropping all the way down to 26th in WAR because of a combination of injuries and underperformance, the team fell apart as well. There was nothing left to make up the difference.By the same token, it shouldn’t be a surprise that this year’s improved health and performance on the mound has the Mets back on track. According to WAR, New York ranks second in total pitching value once again, trailing only the Red Sox. The rest of the team has had its bright spots, including the early season play of newly acquired third baseman Todd Frazier, but by and large it’s been the same formula as in the team’s successful 2015 and 2016 seasons: Win with dominant pitching, solid hitting and a mediocre-yet-passable combination of base running and fielding. Can it last? Well, the Mets have won a few extra ballgames thanks to timely hitting that probably won’t keep up at the same rate. But more importantly, because of off-days and a weather postponement, they’ve had to turn to a starter outside their top four only once this season, a Zack Wheeler start on April 11. Other than that, it’s been all Syndergaard, deGrom, Harvey3Not that Harvey has been amazing, mind you: He’s the only Mets starter with an ERA worse than league average this season. and Matz — a trend that will dry up soon. And for all the turns taken by those big-name starters, New York is still just 14th in innings per start, with the team again leaning heavily on a bullpen that, to its credit, has been baseball’s most valuable in the early going. (That’s a recent theme, too: The Mets had MLB’s seventh-best bullpen in 2016.)So it’s still too early to say whether this staff will stay healthy enough all season to keep up its early pace, or if it has enough depth to survive the kinds of injuries that happen to normal teams — even if this year’s Mets aren’t as snakebit as last year’s were. But if they do keep it up, the Mets will join the 1998 San Diego Padres as the only team in MLB’s expansion era to go from the top five in pitching WAR one season to the bottom five the next, and then back to the top five the following year.4Similar to the 2017 Mets, the 1997 Padres were ravaged by injuries and underperformance. That team ended up going to the World Series; we’ll have to see whether this year’s Mets can follow in those footsteps and cash in on their own red-hot start.Check out our latest MLB predictions.read more

How forecasters view the AFC South race How forecasters view the AFC East race Based on projected wins or over/under win totals. Data gathered on Aug. 31, 2018.Sources: ESPN, Football Outsiders, Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports Having finally joined the rest of their division rivals in February as a Super Bowl-winning franchise, the Eagles will carry the burden of defending their championship this season. Luckily for them, the roster is once again brimming with talent, particularly in the trenches. There is, however, the slight matter of eventually sorting out a QB situation that features Super Bowl MVP (and this year’s opening-day starter) Nick Foles and — once fully healthy — a potential MVP candidate in Carson Wentz. The Cowboys are hoping to rebound from 2017’s disappointing 9-7 campaign, and on paper they have the talent to do it. But the pressure will be on QB Dak Prescott to improve last season’s passing attack while dealing with a depleted group of targets. Bringing up the rear of the division in the forecasters’ eyes are the Giants and Redskins; the former is sticking with an old QB (Eli Manning) alongside new supporting talent (rookie RB Saquon Barkley), while the latter is breaking in a new passer (Alex Smith, acquired from the Chiefs in January) but hasn’t given him much of a supporting cast to work with. New York has more upside, but a breakthrough will be tough in this division. 1New England11.210.510.512.011.011.0 1Pittsburgh9.910.010.211.010.510.3 2New Orleans9.29.49.411.09.59.7 Based on projected wins or over/under win totals. Data gathered on Aug. 31, 2018.Sources: ESPN, Football Outsiders, Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports Similar to the AFC East, the forecasters don’t see much of a race brewing in the North. Talent-wise, the Steelers are the class of the division once again — assuming running back Le’Veon Bell reports to work in what’s likely his final season with the club. However, Pittsburgh did catch some lucky breaks last year, while the Ravens have several indicators pointing upward for 2018, such as a better point differential than their 2017 record would suggest. Even so, it would still be surprising to see Baltimore take the division for the first time since 2012. Running well behind the Steelers and Ravens are the Bengals, who retained coach Marvin Lewis — thus ensuring that his mediocre marriage with QB Andy Dalton will continue far past the point at which they should have divorced. Lastly, the Browns seem like less of a trainwreck than usual after an offseason spent overhauling their roster, though they still have a lot of work to do. How forecasters view the AFC North race 4Arizona7.46.37.64.05.56.2 As usual, the Patriots are everybody’s pick to win the AFC East for what would be the 16th time in 18 seasons. Tom Brady will slow down someday, and it’s possible that this year’s depleted receiving corps will hasten the decline, but it remains foolish to bet against Bill Belichick and Co. in this division — especially since our forecasters see it as the most imbalanced in football. The Jets and Dolphins are each projected to win only about seven games; while New York improved some over the offseason and Miami ought to have better luck with injuries and turnovers, neither team has the talent to realistically make a run at the Pats. And fresh off their first playoff berth since 1999, the Bills appear likely to regress this season after trading quarterback Tyrod Taylor to clear the deck (eventually) for rookie Josh Allen. Team538 EloESPN FPIFB OutsidersSI PreviewWestgateAvg. Team538 EloESPN FPIFB OutsidersSI PreviewWestgateAvg. Expected number of wins 1Atlanta9.99.38.112.09.59.8 How forecasters view the NFC North race 4Cleveland3.86.07.54.05.55.4 3Seattle8.97.68.37.08.08.0 2Dallas8.88.59.18.08.58.6 4Tampa Bay6.86.17.05.06.56.3 1Minnesota9.99.59.211.010.09.9 Expected number of wins Team538 EloESPN FPIFB OutsidersSI PreviewWestgateAvg. Based on projected wins or over/under win totals. Data gathered on Aug. 31, 2018.Sources: ESPN, Football Outsiders, Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports 3Miami7.06.77.57.06.56.9 3Tennessee8.18.38.08.08.08.1 Team538 EloESPN FPIFB OutsidersSI PreviewWestgateAvg. The South is another strong candidate for the NFL’s toughest division. The forecasters see a dead heat at the top between the Falcons and the Saints, with the numbers perhaps giving a slight edge to New Orleans, while the scouts favor Atlanta. The Falcons are trying to prove that their offensive fireworks of 2016 were the real thing and that last year’s regression was the mirage. The statistical trends don’t exactly point upward, but Atlanta remains one of the league’s most talent-laden teams on paper. For New Orleans, it’s about building on the momentum of last season’s division crown — powered by the emergence of dual rookie of the year winners RB Alvin Kamara and CB Marshon Lattimore — while counting on Drew Brees to remain one of the game’s premier QBs at age 39. The Panthers can’t be dismissed, either, as long as QB Cam Newton and LB Luke Kuechly lead the way. But after they racked up 11 wins last season, their key indicators point down across the board, and a tumultuous offseason can’t have helped. A decline could be in order. Meanwhile, the Buccaneers might be the anti-Panthers in that regard — almost all of their important factors from last year are pointing up, and they made a number of key offseason pickups — though it might not matter with QB Jameis Winston suspended for the season’s first three games. 4Buffalo8.06.35.44.06.56.0 3Cincinnati7.56.97.44.07.06.6 Based on projected wins or over/under win totals. Data gathered on Aug. 31, 2018.Sources: ESPN, Football Outsiders, Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports 2Kansas City9.58.67.67.08.58.2 How forecasters view the NFC East race 1L.A. Chargers9.08.77.910.09.59.0 1L.A. Rams8.29.49.510.010.09.4 2Houston6.38.38.39.08.58.1 Expected number of wins Based on projected wins or over/under win totals. Data gathered on Aug. 31, 2018.Sources: ESPN, Football Outsiders, Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports Although the NFC West is no longer the most fearsome division in football, it still offers plenty of intrigue. The Rams broke through to win it a year ago on the strength of a great defense and a vastly improved offense. Then L.A. tried to head off any potential regression at the pass with a plethora of offseason acquisitions, including WR Brandin Cooks, DL Ndamukong Suh, and CBs Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib. The sizable extensions the team recently gave running back Todd Gurley and defensive end Aaron Donald mean the clock is already ticking on the Rams’ championship window, but for now, L.A. ranks among the NFC’s Super Bowl favorites. The 49ers and Seahawks are also difficult to pin down: San Francisco’s fate is tied to starting QB Jimmy Garoppolo — and we still don’t have much of a clue what that will mean for the Niners in 2018. Seattle looks better on paper, but Pete Carroll’s team also lost a number of veterans in the offseason; this isn’t the same perennial contender that it was a few years ago. As for the Cardinals, their 8-8 finish last season belied the point differential of a six-win squad. The team brought in a new coach (Steve Wilks) and a couple of new QBs (Sam Bradford and rookie Josh Rosen) to go with now-healthy RB David Johnson, but Arizona remains in a period of transition. 2San Francisco7.38.27.49.08.58.1 Expected number of wins Based on projected wins or over/under win totals. Data gathered on Aug. 31, 2018.Sources: ESPN, Football Outsiders, Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports 4Washington7.26.77.85.07.06.7 3N.Y. Giants5.86.86.18.07.06.7 The NFL regular season finally kicks off Thursday night with a playoff rematch between the Atlanta Falcons and the defending-champion Philadelphia Eagles, and in preparation for the new season, FiveThirtyEight is relaunching its NFL prediction interactive. We’ll be using our NFL Elo ratings to track how every team stacks up all year long.For now, though, our ratings are a little underpowered: Although Elo has regressed each team to the mean since last season, it doesn’t know about all the big moves and coaching changes that happened over the offseason. It will eventually learn as teams play games, but to compensate until then, we’ve averaged Elo’s preseason predictions together with those of several other respected forecasters — ESPN’s Football Power Index, Football Outsiders’ Defense-adjusted Value Over Average projections, Sports Illustrated’s preview predictions and over/under win totals from the Las Vegas Westgate sportsbook — to get a sense of the big picture for this season’s Super Bowl race. This could be the best division in football. The Vikings are incumbent champs after last year’s surprising 13-3 campaign, and they have a highly paid new field general in ex-Washington QB Kirk Cousins. Minnesota’s talent and offseason maneuvers might be enough to offset a number of factors that point to a decline, including good luck on injuries and in close games, plus an unsustainably great defensive performance on third downs. But the Packers are right behind them, poised to bounce back from a lost season that saw QB Aaron Rodgers miss nine games. Rodgers no longer has his longtime favorite target, Jordy Nelson, and the offensive supporting cast has its question marks, but a revamped defense under new coordinator Mike Pettine could pay dividends. The Lions have finished either 9-7 or 7-9 in four of the past five seasons, and the forecasters are basically splitting the difference with an 8-8 prediction this year. Detroit has a new coach in former Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, but despite new additions to the ground game (veteran LeGarrette Blount and rookie Kerryon Johnson), the team didn’t seem to improve very much over the offseason. Finally, the Bears are slowly coming out of hibernation with moves like their recent trade for edge-rusher Khalil Mack — but although a number of factors are pointing up for Chicago, it will be tough to contend in this division for now. Expected number of wins Team538 EloESPN FPIFB OutsidersSI PreviewWestgateAvg. With only 1.8 projected wins separating first place from last, the AFC West looks like the tightest division in the league. The Chargers are the forecasters’ favorites, and they did have the best point differential (+83) of any team in the division last year. The talent is there for the team’s first playoff bid since 2013, though it remains to be seen if the execution will follow. Meanwhile, the Chiefs are breaking in young QB Patrick Mahomes — always cause for concern — but in terms of the supporting cast, Mahomes will have one of the best situations for any new starter ever. The bigger question for K.C. might be whether its defense can improve on last year’s terrible showing. As for the Broncos, Denver has a new signal-caller of its own in Case Keenum, and they’ll be counting on him to turn around three straight years of awful QB play — but will his O-line protect him? And with a veteran roster under new coach Jon Gruden, there was some optimism that the Raiders could potentially reclaim their 12-win form of 2016 … but that was before they traded star pass-rusher Khalil Mack. Now, a last-place finish seems more likely than a return to the postseason. 2Green Bay7.19.59.311.010.09.4 3Detroit8.27.67.810.07.58.2 4Chicago6.66.96.27.06.56.6 Team538 EloESPN FPIFB OutsidersSI PreviewWestgateAvg. 3Denver7.07.07.08.07.07.2 How forecasters view the NFC South race 1Philadelphia11.010.19.111.010.510.3 2Baltimore8.78.88.47.08.08.2 4Oakland7.37.97.95.08.07.2 Team538 EloESPN FPIFB OutsidersSI PreviewWestgateAvg. 3Carolina8.68.77.57.09.08.2 Expected number of wins Expected number of wins Expected number of wins How forecasters view the NFC West race Team538 EloESPN FPIFB OutsidersSI PreviewWestgateAvg. 2N.Y. Jets6.96.06.99.06.07.0 1Jacksonville8.88.57.710.09.08.8 Based on projected wins or over/under win totals. Data gathered on Aug. 31, 2018.Sources: ESPN, Football Outsiders, Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports Based on projected wins or over/under win totals. Data gathered on Aug. 31, 2018.Sources: ESPN, Football Outsiders, Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports At last, a competitive division — if not a particularly stacked one. After a breakthrough 10-win season, the Jaguars are AFC South favorites, and they had the point differential of an even better team last year. But for all of Jacksonville’s defensive dominance (and easy 2018 schedule), the forecasters are skeptical that the Blake Bortles-led Jags won’t backslide — perhaps because it’s hard for a great D to stay great. If the Jags do fall, the Texans could pick up the slack under second-year QB Deshaun Watson, who is back from last year’s knee injury to spare Houston from the terrible succession of passers who tried to replace him. But don’t count out the Titans, either, if new offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur can help Marcus Mariota bounce back from his disappointing 2017. Finally, who knows what to expect of the Colts? Indy lacks talent at a number of positions, but with QB Andrew Luck returning from injury in a less-than-intimidating division, anything’s possible. How forecasters view the AFC West race 4Indianapolis6.37.58.15.06.56.7read more

The teal curve assumes that Bell reports for Week 2 and begins collecting his $855,529 paychecks,2Players earn salaries during their bye weeks, so Bell would earn about $13.7 million for the rest of the season. and then signs a contract with $38 million in guaranteed money at the end of the season. This would make Bell’s total compensation close to $52 million, representing a probable best-case scenario for Bell. The orange curve assumes that he holds out until Week 11, and thus loses out on $855,529 for the next nine weeks, but then signs the same contract with $38 million guaranteed in free agency. In this scenario, Bell would earn $44 million in total.3Including the $855,529 for Weeks 11 through 17, which comes out to $6 million.Crucially, both models assume that Bell receives no future contract if he is injured. Should he go down after signing with Pittsburgh for this season, Bell would collect only the salary guaranteed him under the franchise tag, a very pessimistic scenario. Yet in our chart, we see that the point at which a holdout is expected to become more profitable is outside the range accounting for our best guess at the true injury rate. So reporting and playing is the best option if Bell is seeking to maximize his earnings.Is this the end of the story? Perhaps not — if Bell is actually worth more in free agency than Fitzgerald estimates. If Bell is able to land a contract worth more than Todd Gurley’s, for a total guaranteed contract value of $55 million, holding out becomes a profitable decision. Last weekend, Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell sat out the first game of the regular season rather than play under the NFL franchise tag. Slated to earn $14.5 million in guaranteed money in 2018, Bell loses out on $855,529 each week he fails to report. The franchise tag would make Bell the third highest paid running back in the NFL this season — but only if he actually plays. Around the league, there is a wide range of speculation on how long Bell’s holdout will last. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports that his sources believe Bell could be back by the end of September, while others note his holdout could conceivably last through Week 10.1To play any part of this season, Bell must sign by 4 p.m. Eastern on the Tuesday following Week 10, or Nov. 13.Bell’s agent, Adisa Bakari, has hinted that Bell is holding out at least partially because of concerns that the Steelers will overuse him in what is likely his final year with the team. Bakari and Bell appear to have decided to hold out as long as possible to avoid that potential workload and the injury risk it brings. This is a legitimate concern: If Bell suffered a major injury without already obtaining significant guaranteed money, it could end up costing the star running back tens of millions of dollars.So for now, Bell and Bakari’s plan seems to be to maximize his future earnings by forgoing a guaranteed weekly paycheck. But if profit maximization is the aim, is this actually the correct approach? Should Bell hold out through Week 10 if his goal is to earn the most money?To answer those questions, Bell’s camp must balance the amount of guaranteed money he is likely to earn in the open market with the risk of injury if he plays this season. The market for elite running backs in the NFL is difficult to gauge, but we have two recent comps to help us land on an approximate value. I asked NFL salary cap expert Jason Fitzgerald of Over the Cap for his opinion, and he believes Bell will likely command a contract that will land somewhere between what Todd Gurley and David Johnson were able to negotiate.“Realistically, I can’t see a path to exceed $45 million in guarantees to top Gurley,” Fitzgerald told me. “In light of the Johnson deal, I’d probably say a fair number to use is something between $35 [million] and $38 million in injury guarantees and probably looking at a three-year deal.”Bell and his agent surely have a salary target in mind, and it may well be different from what Fitzgerald estimates Bell is worth. For now, we’ll use the high end of Fitzgerald’s range and assume that Bell lands a contract with $38 million in guarantees. Next we need to calculate the injury risk of playing running back in the NFL. Moreover, we need to adjust the injury rate to account for players who see a large volume of touches. Over his career, since 2013, Bell has averaged 24.9 touches per game, the most in the league. Each of those touches is an opportunity for a serious injury that could rob Bell of his future earnings.According to Football Outsiders, the running back position has the second highest rate of serious injuries in the league at less than 20 percent. Serious injuries are defined as those that cause a player to miss four or more games, which is the outcome Bell surely wants to avoid. This injury rate estimate is probably too low, however. Football Outsiders includes all running backs on each 53-man roster in its rate calculation, regardless of whether they actually take the field. Being tackled in the NFL is a major driver of injury, so we need to account for touches on the field of play.One way to do this is to leverage fantasy drafts as a proxy for running back usage in the upcoming season. Fantasy players use the early part of their drafts to take running backs who they anticipate will see high volume. To estimate the injury rate for these players, I reached out to epidemiologist Zach Binney, a sports performance and injury consultant and a writer for Football Outsiders. Binney took average draft position (ADP) data from 2007 to 2015 and used Football Outsider’s proprietary injury database to calculate the serious injury rate for running backs with a preseason positional ADP of 24 or greater. He estimates that the true likelihood of serious injury is between 20.9 and 32.8 percent for NFL running backs over a season.Armed with these findings, we can create payoff curves based on a range of possible per-game injury probabilities. In this scenario, the point at which a holdout is expected to become more profitable falls within our true injury range estimate. Bell’s decision to hold out here makes sense because it balances future earnings with the risk of injury.In both scenarios, there is a possibility that the injury rate we’ve calculated is underestimating the true danger to Bell’s health and future earnings. After all, Bell’s workload is extreme: He led the NFL with 406 touches last season. There may also be motivations at play in Bell’s holdout that are not related to compensation, and not all costs can be captured in a simple model.That said, the chances of Bell getting a contract north of $38 million seem very low. The last best offer from the Steelers reportedly included just $10 million guaranteed. James Conner, Bell’s replacement, recorded 192 yards from scrimmage along with two touchdowns against the Browns in Week 1. If Bell’s overriding goal is to get paid and maximize his earnings, his best course of action is to report immediately to team headquarters and start cashing his checks.Check out our latest NFL predictions.CORRECTION (Sept. 13, 2018, 6 p.m.): A description of the first chart in a previous version of this article transposed the colors of the curves.read more

OSU freshman forward Maddy Field (22) fights for the puck during a game against Minnesota State on Oct. 23 at the Schottenstein Center. OSU won 5-3.Credit: Courtesy of OSUWhen a soon-to-be freshman commits to be a college athlete, there is an expectation of an adjustment period against higher-level competition and in the classroom.For the five freshmen on the Ohio State women’s ice hockey team, that adjustment came with the added pressure of playing for a different coach than they had committed to just a few months before.Former OSU coach Nate Handrahan brought the class together, but that connection was thrown for a loop after his resignation in March. A month later, Jenny Potter was named the program’s coach. But rather than struggle with the change, OSU’s newest members have excelled in their first few months as college hockey players.“When I originally got the call I was scared,” freshman forward Maddy Field said. “When you commit to a coach, he makes you promises, and Jenny Potter had never seen me play before, so I didn’t know if I was going to be playing. But honestly, it’s been the best transition and I couldn’t have asked for a better coach.”Young bloodField, who is tied for second on the team in goals scored with seven, has been one of the standouts of her class in an otherwise difficult season for the rookies and the team. Field has recorded nine points in 18 games this season, compared to 14 for the rest of the class. Additionally, defender Jincy Dunne, the headliner of the recruiting class, has yet to play this season.With a coach also in her first season at OSU, adapting to a new way of life has been a shared experience from top to bottom.“I think with a new coach everyone was in the same boat. They’re all new to the systems and I was new to them and they were new to me,” Potter said. “There isn’t really that much of a difference for them other than just acclimating to life as a student-athlete here at OSU.”For some of the talented rookies, that adaptation has not proven quite as difficult.Another newcomer having a noteworthy year, defender Lauren Boyle, has surprised with 10 assists so far and earned an increased role in recent weeks, including a start on defense for OSU in one game of its final series of the 2015 calendar year against Minnesota-Duluth alongside sophomore Dani Sadek.“Being a captain on my high school team last year, I was looked to create a lot of opportunities and plays and I scored a lot of goals last year,” Boyle said. “I’ve never been a goal scorer but having that leadership role of making plays has helped my vision, finding the best opportunity.”Boyle has the distinction of having played under Potter before, when she coached her in an international youth hockey tournament. But four years later, Boyle said she doesn’t believe that history gave her a special leg-up on the season.“Coming into this season I didn’t really know how much I was going to play or what role I’d fill,” Boyle said. “I think Jenny has pushed me to locate my role and have expectations for myself, which in the long run will help me grow.”Potter said she is not surprised to see Boyle make a strong adjustment to the next level.“She was a great competitor then and she still is now,” Potter said. “She’s grown up a lot, understandably, but she’s been a great player for us so far this season.”During an otherwise difficult season, the emergence of young talent, especially in Field and Boyle, has pleased the coaches, who are determined to build a competitive program.“I think they’ve, those two, have done a great job coming in here as freshmen with a new coach, and they’ve stepped up to the plate for sure,” Potter said.Notable absenceJincy Dunne, the younger sister of sophomore defender Jessica Dunne, has missed the entire season thus far with an undisclosed upper-body injury.The freshman, who committed to play for OSU in December 2014, was the final skater to be cut from the U.S. women’s Olympic team for the Sochi games, which would have made her the youngest player to represent her country on the hockey team. Without Jincy Dunne, the rest of the freshman class has played in all but one game so far in 2015-16, with forward Dana Rasmussen tallying the lone absence in the final weekend before winter break.read more

“I tried to block [my emotions] out. I’m still trying to block them out now,” Todd said in a post-game press conference. “There is certainly going to be some emotions tonight when my family comes over.”The team showed Todd’s emotions for him as they played and defeated Big Ten regular-season champion Minnesota by a score of 9-6 in the second game of a doubleheader. And as all the players acknowledged they wanted to send their coach off on a high note, he was preaching another message.“I told our team last week, and I told them today, that my retirement isn’t bigger than this team or this program,” Todd said.But Bob Todd and the OSU baseball program go hand in hand.Todd helped build the baseball program from the ground up. He was the driving force in the construction of Bill Davis Stadium and finishes his career as the all-time winningest coach in OSU baseball history with 901 victories. The No. 18 jersey was retired Saturday afternoon at Bill Davis Stadium, before the Ohio State baseball team’s last game of the season.The number has been worn by coach Bob Todd during his 23-year tenure at OSU. Todd announced his retirement earlier this season and was honored in a pregame ceremony before the Buckeyes’ final game.“It’s always something special,” Todd said of having his number join three others along the right field wall. “There’s an awful lot of quality coaches that don’t get to experience that because they never get to wear a uniform with a number on the back. Baseball is unique in that regard.”“I’m very appreciative to Gene Smith and the athletic department for honoring me that way,” he said.The right field wall was not the only place the No. 18 was prominently displayed. A majority of the more than 2,000 fans in attendance donned Bob Todd T-shirts with his number on the back. The shirts were proudly worn by Todd’s children and grandchildren, who were all in attendance to see the longtime coach in his final game at the helm for OSU.Despite the overwhelming emotions of the moment, Todd was able to remain stoic through the game Saturday.read more

After defeating Georgetown on Friday night 2-0, the Ohio State women’s soccer team (17-4-1) is preparing for its first Final Four matchup in program history when it will take on Notre Dame (19-2-2) on Friday in Cary, N.C. Notre Dame enters the Final Four as the No. 4 seed in its region, after knocking off No. 1 seed North Carolina 4-1 in the Sweet 16 and No. 2 seed Oklahoma State 2-0 in the Elite Eight. OSU forward Paige Maxwell, the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year, said she isn’t intimidated by the Fighting Irish, who have outscored their opponents 13-1 in the tournament. “They’re a solid team, just like anyone else. You have to be, honestly, a great team to go into the Final Four,” Maxwell said. “But I don’t think that they’re a competitor that we can’t beat.” OSU goalkeeper Katie Baumgardner said the Buckeyes are prepared to take on their Midwest rival. “They’re a great team. They only have two losses on the season,” Baumgardner said. “There’s a lot of tension between the two teams, so it’s going to be a heated rivalry.” Geographical proximity might be the only similarity between the Buckeyes and the Fighting Irish. The Buckeyes will try to combat Notre Dame’s high-scoring offense with a defense led by the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, Cassie Dickerson. The Buckeyes’ defense has given up two goals in the first four rounds of the tournament, both of which came in OSU’s Sweet 16 matchup with Virginia. “As a defense, we like to work for each other,” Dickerson said. “If we set that tone, it will work up the field for our midfielders and our forwards. So if we set that tone and our whole team plays with that mentality, then I think we’re pretty hard to stop.” While Notre Dame has advanced to the Final Four by way of taking commanding leads over its opponents, the Buckeyes have tended more toward nailbiters, including a double-overtime, opening-round win over St. Francis (PA) and a second-round penalty kick shootout victory over Dayton. Maxwell said the Buckeyes are built to win close games. “We’re an overtime team,” Maxwell said. “We’re all fit enough. We all know the game of soccer, and anything can happen with soccer.” A win Friday would put the Buckeyes in Sunday’s championship game against the winner of the Stanford (22-0-2) and Boston College (17-6-1) matchup. Baumgardner said she’s yet to put her team’s historic season into perspective. “None of us have realized how big this season has been,” Baumgardner said. “It’s not going to really sink in until it’s over.” Maxwell said she’s excited to showcase her talents in the national spotlight but that, for now, the Buckeyes are focused on beating the Fighting Irish. “We deserve to be here. We deserve to show people our game, our style and how athletic and how good we are as a soccer team,” Maxwell said. “It’s been a whirlwind, but we’re just ready to go there and show Notre Dame what’s up.”read more